Fortnitisation #aboutlastnight — Kortrijk 14/11
I found my car heading for Kortrijk. The long drive got me reflecting on all the things we had already learned these last weeks by opening up to the academic world. Crazy good stuff. Heading towards HOWEST where Belgians finest Game Developper school DAE & DIVINE islocated. They were even chosen to be the best of the world !! Time to talk about that Fortnite phenomona … Why is it so succesful ? How did they do it ? What can we learn from them …
First up @ the beautiful Hangar K was Fredo of course welcoming everybody. I needed to timebox the session and that’s where it went wrong :-) Fredo’s intro was to interesting to stop. He was explaining that this new platform is really challenging us. Time to get our act together as public broadcaster. Followed by Wouter Quartier, explaining the 15 mediatrends of VRT .
Next up was Rogier De Langhe, Economic Philosopher from UGent, who explained more about the rise of the platforms in the past and how products are becoming non-physical services. The future is all about the network effect of the platforms working together. This will have an exponential effect ! After that Olivier Van Duüren took us on a tour of his executive whisperer knowledge about the platforms and their future. Some dazzling numbers later he concluded we haven’t seen anything yet and the big bang still has to come with the new generation.
After a small break Bouba Kalala, our VRT gaming host, invited 3 small cases to the stage. First up Rani D’hulster explaining to the students that VRT is finally flirting with gaming and that it’s cool times @ Reyerslaan. Join the fun @ video snackbar. Iris Delafortry talked about CYBORN, belgian biggest game & VR development studio. Investing in innovation is key, change like a chameleon while doing it. Finally Taho Vindevogel, fresh out of HOWEST, told about his days as a junior game producer @ triangle factory. A small Ghent based game & VR development studio.
Fredo & Rik Leenknecht (head of DAE HOWEST) wrapped up with questions from our SLI.do setup. Real cool stuff when doing events to get questions in. First question … ‘Will there be food ?’ … second question ‘What is Rani doing tonight ? ‘ … :-) Anyway some serious questions later they concluded that this session had really been interesting. Especially that their 3 departements of coders, commmunicators & designers came together for this. New solutions are only found together. Time for further crossbreeding & drinks, fueling innovation since 20000 BC.
As the major Vincent Van Quickenborne was running late from Brussels, Bouba just started VR gaming. Everybody else could go and do some VR shooting @ the PARK by Telenet next door. Also developped by Taho @Triangle factory. Really Cool stuff !! Thank you Lieselot for being a great organiser & host.
